This is an article I wrote for
PROTEAN SYNTHESIS, a semi-private
newsletter after it was solicited by the editor:

DIANISM IN A NUIT-SHELL

Recently, I got back in touch with my teacher
after nearly two years and dropped a couple of bombshells on her: I had
changed gender identity and had come together with two other women to form
a Dianic coven. When the initial shock wore off, Rita sent me a complete
run of Protean Synthesis and a solicitation for this article.
Several years ago I subscribed to several
stereotypes regarding "those peculiar Dianics". They were thealogically
unbalanced, they hated men, they denied that men had souls, they were all
lesbians, they couldn't spell (in the orthographic sense; no one has yet
accused Dianics of inability to work magick), etc. etc. When I came
together with my covensisters, I realized that these notions were at most
partially true and some cases were patently false.
I believe there are only three valid generalizations
that can be made about Dianics: 1) We are all feminists. 2) We all
look to the Goddess(es) far more than to the God(s). 3) We are all
eclectics. Note well that there are plenty of non-Dianic feminist
Witches, non-Dianic eclectics, and non- Dianics who are primarily Goddess-oriented.
There are also doubtless a good many feminist, Goddess-oriented eclectics
who do not choose to call themselves Dianic. In my own case I use
the "If it quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck" argument, as well
as the fact that my HPS learned the Craft as a Dianic and runs Dianic rituals.
Some of the stereotypical generalizations
I can dismiss out of hand. I don't know of a single Dianic who denies
that men have souls. Even Z Budapest doesn't believe that piece of
tripe anymore! It is true that Dianism is particularly attractive
to separatists, and many separatists actually hate men. Many Dianics
are lesbians. Some misspell words like "woman", women", "egalitarian",
and "holistic" on purpose. Not all fit these, however, and I think
that Z Budapest in her younger, or spiritual bomb-throwing, days represents
an extreme and a small minority. There are a number of males involved
in Dianism, and some of those are men [NB: I use the terms "man" and "woman"
to indicate gender identity, that is, how one's heart, mind,
and/or soul are configured. I use "male" and "female" to indicate
physical sex, that is, how one's plumbing is configured. I hope this
dispels confusion.].
Thealogical and magickal imbalance is not
so easily dismissed and needs to be addressed further, as that is the most
valid objection that thoughtful Witches have to Dianism. The apparent
imbalance comes from the Dianic emphasis on Goddess-worship, often to the
complete exclusion of God-worship. This upsets many Witches' sense
of polarity balance. The resolution of this apparent imbalance lies
in the consideration of other polarities than sexual and/or gender as the
primary polarity. There are indeed many other polarities to consider:
true-false, life-death, dark-light, rational- mystical,
creation-destruction, order-chaos, and good-evil, to name but a few.
One problem with the masculine-feminine polarity is that there is a strong
tendency to express all other polarities in terms of it. The Chinese
were particularly fond of this, and mapped everything they liked into the
yang side, and everything they disliked or feared into the yin side, the
patriarchal no-accounts!
One thing I have discovered is that if you
look hard enough, you can find goddesses to fit both ends of most polarities.
Some even occupy both ends simultaneously. Inanna, my matron goddess,
is a good case in point. She is the Sumerian goddess of love, war,
wisdom (which she won in a drinking bout!), adventure, the heavens, the
earth, and even of death (in the guise of her dark aspect, Ereshkigal).
A very busy lady indeed is Inanna. At this point it becomes largely
a matter of personal preference rather than of polarity, whether one chooses
a god or a goddess to occupy a particular place in a ritual.
No Dianic I know of denies the existence of
the God. Indeed, He gets mentioned as the consort of the Goddess
with some frequency in Z Budapest's HOLY BOOK OF WOMEN'S MYSTERIES, which
is close a thing as there is to a Dianic version of the Gardnerian Book
of Shadows. He is there, and sometimes we will invoke Him, when it
is appropriate. He
makes His own path, and we follow our own, and when they cross naturally
we honor Him and do not avoid Him. We also do not force the paths
to cross simply to lend an artificial balance to a ritual wherenone is
really needed.
Now that I have spilled a good deal of ink
over what Dianism is not, I should now say a few words about what it is:
a movement of feminist, eclectic, Goddess-oriented Witches.
Feminism: This covers a vast multitude of
virtues and sins. I do not think the stereotypical radical lesbian
separatist is as common as is believed. Moderate to liberal feminism
is probably far more common, even among Dianics. Certainly my own
coven contains no separatists! There are too many nice men out there,
even though surveys have shown that 70% or more of all men are potential
rapists. The nice ones are found among those who are not in that
repulsive majority; you just have to look to find them. One of the
places you might find such nice men is in Dianic covens! Some are
mixed groups, at least some of those of the branch founded by Morgan McFarland.
My own is something of a mixed up group, I suppose. While we do not
currently have any men in the coven, two of the three of us were born
male and still have original-equipment plumbing. The Goddess and
our HPS accept us unreservedly as women.
Eclecticism: If there is one dictum of Z Budapest's
that bears repeating to everyone in the Craft, and which gets followed
by many, it is "When in doubt, invent." Dianics tend toward creative
ritual, drawing from any and all possible sources. I have yet to
see a Dianic equivalent of the Gardnerian Book of Shadows, nor do I ever
hope to see one.
Goddess Orientation: I've discussed this at
some length while talking about polarity. There are some wags who
have said that Dianics are nothing but matriarchal monotheists. I
tell you three times: The Dianic Goddess is NOT Jehovah in drag!
The Dianic Goddess is NOT Jehovah in drag! The Dianic Goddess is
NOT Jehovah in drag! A much closer analogy would be that Dianics
have taken the Classical pantheon and reclaimed most of the roles.
This, too, is oversimplifying, but it is not nearly as wide of the mark
as the usual criticism. At some point I may write up a long exegesis
on the Dianic Goddess, but not here. My own personal involvement
with Her comes from a great feeling of comfort I do not find elsewhere.
She feels right. I have a great deal of difficulty accepting known
rapists (most of the Olympian males are this, especially Zeus, Hades, and
Pan!) into my personal pantheon. I also feel a personal vocation
from the Mother; it is rather incongruous to me to embrace a male deity
wholeheartedly when the Goddess comes to me and calls me Her daughter.
This goes doubled, redoubled, in pentacles, and vulnerable for lovers of
women.
I hope this little discussion of Dianism-in-a-Nuitshell
has proved enlightening to you. It is not a path for everyone, but
it is
a valid path for some, and in considering it I hope that you can nowignore
the garbage that has been put forth in the past as "data" regarding it.